This fall’s new FAA regulations have made drone flight easier than ever for both companies and consumers. But what if the drones out on the market aren’t exactly what you want?

A new system from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is the first to allow users to design, simulate and build their own custom drone. Users can change the size, shape and structure of their drone based on the specific needs they have for payload, cost, flight time, battery usage and other factors.

MIT researchers and their colleagues have developed a new computational model of the human brain’s face-recognition mechanism that seems to capture aspects of human neurology that previous models have missed.

Lockheed Martin CTO Keoki Jackson ’89, SM ’92, ScD ’97 (center, left) and MIT AeroAstro department head Jaime Peraire congratulate each other after signing a research collaboration agreement between the two organizations. Initial research will focus on robotics and autonomous systems.Photo: William Litant/MIT AeroAstro

In a new collaborative initiative in autonomy and robotics, MIT and Lockheed Martin scientists will focus on innovations needed to enable generation-after-next autonomous systems. Improvements in human/machine teaming and navigation in complex environments are among the research challenges that Lockheed Martin is inviting MIT faculty and their students to help solve.

At the annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence last weekend, researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) presented a new way of modeling robot collaboration that reduces the need for communication by 60 percent. They believe that their model could make it easier to design systems that enable humans and robots to work together — in, for example, emergency-response teams.

Getting drones to fly around without hitting things is no small task. Obstacle-detection and motion-planning are two of computer science’s trickiest challenges because of the complexity involved in creating real-time flight plans that avoid obstacles and handle surprises like wind and weather. In a pair of projects announced this week, CSAIL researchers demonstrated software that allow drones to stop on a dime to make hairpin movements over, under, and around some 26 distinct obstacles in a simulated “forest.”

Coming to life in the 1970s with then-instructor Professor Emeritus Woodie Flowers at the lead, 2.007 was at the forefront of a revolution in engineering education, becoming one of the first hands-on classes to teach students not only how to design an object but also how to build it. Today, it’s a fun celebration of making that ends in an annual head-to-head robot competition on MechE’s Innovation Day in May.

Last Friday, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) hosted 150 local high school students for its second annual “Hour of Code” event, tied to the international initiative focused on getting kids interested in programming.

NASA announced today that MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is one of two university research groups nationwide that will receive a 6-foot, 290-pound humanoid robot to test and develop for future space missions to Mars and beyond.

If you follow technology news — or even if you don’t — you have probably heard that numerous companies have been trying to develop driverless cars for a decade or more. These fully automated vehicles could potentially be safer than regular cars, and might add various efficiencies to our roads, like smoother-flowing traffic. Or so it is often claimed. But the promise of artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, and self-driving cars could be achieved without full autonomy, argue scholars with deep expertise in automation and technology — including David Mindell, an MIT professor and author of a new book on the subject.